REESE LIBRARY 

OF THE 

I UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 



i 

I 
ra 







SLAVERY IN EARLY TEXAS 



PART II 



BY 



L. G. BUGBEE 



Reprinted from POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, Vol. XIII, No. 4 




BOSTON 
GINN & COMPANY 



1898 



BEESE. 








SLAVERY IN EARLY TEXAS. II. 

ANEW danger to the slave interest arose in 1829 in the 
form of a decree of general emancipation promulgated 
by the federal executive. In August of that year Vicente 
Guerrero, the president of the Republic, was invested by Con- 
gress with extraordinary powers for the purpose of driving out 
the Spanish army of invasion which had landed in Mexico. 1 
For two years previous to this event, a bill, introduced and 
ardently advocated by the deputy Jose M. Tornel, had been 
pending in Congress, providing for the complete and final 
emancipation of all slaves in the Republic. It had been 
received "with applause" by the Chamber of Deputies; but, 
for some reason not stated by Tornel, its final passage had been 
delayed by the Senate. 2 Failing to get the measure through 
Congress, Tornel resorted to the more speedy method of win- 
ning over the now absolute Guerrero and carrying his point by 
means of an executive decree. He chose an opportune moment 
for pressing the matter. A very pretty custom had come to 
be observed by the Mexicans as a part of their elaborate cele- 
bration of their Independence Day. A portion of the money 
contributed to pay the cost of the celebration was usually spent 
in the purchase of a number of slaves ; and in the midst of 
the festivities the president in person, publicly and with great 
solemnity, gave their freedom to these unfortunates. Slaves 
had, however, become so scarce in the region of the capital, 
that as early as 1826 there was difficulty in finding a number 
sufficient to make the ceremony impressive. 3 Tornel, accord- 
ingly, urged the extension of the benefits of the annual custom 
to the slaves of the whole Republic. Guerrero yielded, and 
the decree was signed on September 15, 1829. Its three short 

1 Dublan y Lozano, Legislacion Mexicana, II, 151. 

2 Tornel, Breve Resena Historica, p. 85. 
Ward, Mexico in 1827, I, 36. 



SLAVERY IN EARLY TEXAS. 649 

paragraphs declared that slavery was abolished, that all negroes 
were henceforth free and that owners would receive compensa- 
tion at some future time. 1 

This decree had its inception in Tornel's hostility to the 
United States. 

In the abolition of slavery [he said] is involved the important 
political object of establishing a barrier between Mexico and the 
United States, where slavery is maintained in open contradiction to 
the principles solemnly proclaimed in their Act of Independence of 
i 77 6. 2 

But it is not to be inferred that such hostility was general in 
Mexico ; we must be careful not to refer events of that time 
to causes and motives that as yet had no widespread existence. 
A few far-seeing leaders may have appreciated the danger 
ahead, but it required the developments of several years more 
to arouse the nation at large. It will be remembered that, in 
spite of Tornel's advocacy and the absence of an interested 
opposition, the Senate had declined to establish this barrier 
between the two countries by emancipating the slaves in Texas. 
All that can be said is that in 1829 the sentiment against the 
United States was growing, and that it was at least present in 
the mind of Tornel when he persuaded Guerrero to issue the 
emancipation decree. 

The decree at once produced the usual commotion in Texas. 
"We are ruined forever should this Measure be adopted," 
wrote John Durst to Austin immediately after the news reached 
Nacogdoches. 3 There seems to have been a spontaneous move- 
ment in different quarters to prevail upon the Mexican officials 
not to publish the decree. Durst presented the matter to the 
civil and military authorities of Nacogdoches where, it should 
be kept in mind, the Mexican influence was very strong in 
such a manner that they agreed to suspend publication until a 
suitable memorial could be sent to the governor. 4 Two weeks 

1 Dublan y Lozano, Legislation Mexicana, II, 163. 

2 Translated from Tornel's Breve Resena Hist6rica, p. 85. 

8 Durst to Austin, November 10, 1829. Austin Papers, 15. 
4 Ibid. 



209743 



650 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [VOL. XMI. % 

later, he wrote that the ayuntamiento still adhered to its for- 
mer position, but that he knew not at what moment it would 
change front ; for the Mexican commandant possessed much 
influence and might, if he chose, arouse a strong opposition. 1 

Austin, to 'whom in such difficulties all Texas looked for 
leadership, took a similar view of the situation. In reply he 
wrote to Durst : 

What the people of Texas have to do is to represent to the 
Government through the Ayuntamientos or some other channel, in 
a very respectful manner that agreeably to the constitution, and 
the colonization laws all their property is guaranteed to them without 
exceptions in the most solemn and sacred manner. That they brought 
their slave property into the country and have retained it here, under 
the faith of that guarantee, and in consequence of a special invitation 
publically given to emigrants by the government in the colonizacion 
law to do so. That they have taken an oath to defend the consti- 
tution, and are bound to do so. That the constitution of the state 
expressly recognizes the right of property in slaves by allowing six 
months after its publication for their introduction into the State. 
That they will defend it, and with /'/, their property. 

There ought to be no vociferous and visionary excitement or noise 
about this matter. Our course is a very plain one calmn, deliber- 
ate, dispationate, inflexible, firmness ; and not windy and ridiculous 
blowing and wild threats, and much less anything like opposition to 
the Mexican Constitution, nothing of this kind will do any good, it 
will in fact be unjustifiable, and will never be approved of by me 
but on the contrary opposed most decidedly. I will not violate my 
duty as a Mexican citizen. 

The constitution must be both our shield, and our arms ; under 
iV, and with #, we must constitutionally defend ourselves and our 
property. . . . 

If he [the political chief of Bexar] should finally be compelled to 
publish and circulate it, the Ayuntamientos must then take an unani- 
mous, firm, and contitutional stand. The people will unanimously 
support them. 

I know nothing of the men who compose the Ayuntamiento of 

Nacogdoches, if they are true patriots and true friends to themselves 

and to Texas, they will not suffer that decree to be published or 

circulated in that Municipality and they will take the stand I have 

1 Durst to Austin, November 24, 1829. Austin Papers, E 183. 



No. 4.] SLAVERY IN EARLY TEXAS. 651 

indicated or some other that will preserve the contitution and our 
constitutional rights from open, and direct violation. 

These are my ideas on the matter. I have said the same to my 
friends in Bexar, and when the decree arrives officially, (which it has 
not yet) I shall say the same to the Gov*. What I do in this matter 
will be done openly. Mexico has not within its whole dominions a 
man who would defend its independence, the union of its territory, 
and all its constitutional rights sooner than I would, or be more 
ready and willing to discharge his duties as a Mexican citizen ; one 
of the first and most sacred of those duties is to protect my constitu- 
tional rights, and I will do it, so far as I am able. I am the owner 
of one slave only, an old decriped woman, not worth much, but in 
this matter I should feel that my constitutional rights as a Mexican 
were just as much infringed, as they would be if I had a thousand, it 
is the principle and not the amount, the latter makes the violation 
more agrayated, but, not more illegal or unconstitutional. 1 

This lengthy quotation from Austin's letter to Durst is here 
inserted, because it is believed in some quarters that the people 
of Texas on this occasion willfully defied the government of 
Mexico, relying for aid, in case of need, on the United States. 2 
The letter, however, shows that the Texans were fighting a 
battle of their own, and that their resistance to the decree was 
only an episode in the internal history of Mexico, without any 
connection whatever with the politics or visions of the slave- 
holding portion of the United States. The revolutionary spirit 
was not yet abroad in Texas. Stephen Austin, in the above 
extract, spoke the sentiments of the best and most influential 
element among the settlers. They believed that their consti- 
tutional rights as Mexican citizens had been trampled upon 

1 Austin to Durst, November 17, 1829. Austin Papers, 15. 

2 One cannot read such works as Von Hoist's and Schouler's on this subject 
without necessarily connecting the introduction of slaves into Texas with a kind 
of tacit understanding between the United States and Texas that the latter should 
be wrested from Mexico. Yet Von Hoist, referring to the immigration of the 
slave-owning colonists into Texas, naively remarks : " In this, the heads of indi- 
vidual persons may have been haunted by far-reaching projects ; but I can find 
no support for the assertion, that back of it there was a definite plan of the ' south.' " 
(History of the United States, II, 553.) The heads of the colonists of that time 
were no more haunted by such "far-reaching projects" than were those of the 
Mexican leaders who framed the colonization laws. 



652 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [VOL. XIII. 

and, as Mexican citizens, they stood ready to defend those 
rights. These were not the men who led the revolution in 
Texas. When the inexorable logic of history hurried forward 
that event, the great majority of these men stood for a peace- 
able settlement of difficulties, if possible, and they were among 
the last reluctantly to consent to a complete severance of the 
political ties that bound them to Mexico. There was no pre- 
tense about these sentiments of Austin : they were his real 
opinions, which were expressed in his addresses to the political 
chief as well as in his private correspondence with friends. 
There are threats in the letter quoted, but they were not born 
of a revolutionary spirit or prompted by the slave-owners of the 
Southern states of the American Union. They proceeded from a 
firm conviction that on his side were right and the constitution. 
There can be but little doubt that Austin looked forward to 
some kind of resistance to the execution of the decree, in case 
memorials and representations proved of no avail ; but certainly 
there is no ground for the opinion that such resistance con- 
templated the dismemberment of the Republic. The central 
government was so weak at this time that every politician in 
Mexico knew that it could be resisted with very little danger 
of armed collision. 1 

That the views of Austin carried weight with them, even when 
addressed to the non-slave-holding Mexicans, is demonstrated 
by the attitude of the political chief of Bexar and the governor 
of the state, both of whom took up his cause and exerted them- 
selves to secure a modification of the decree. Don Ramon 
Musquiz, the political chief of the department and a personal 
friend of Austin's, suspended the publication of the decree 
until the matter could be laid before the chief executive. His 
representation to the governor is a dignified statement of the 
case, and concerns itself almost entirely with the guaranties 

1 In dealing with this question our historians are perhaps too ready to project 
American ideas into Mexican politics. We of the United States almost neces- 
sarily connect resistance to the government with dismemberment of the Republic. 
It was not so in Mexico. It was not uncommon, particularly during the period 
under consideration, for states to decline to enforce the decrees of the central 
government. 



No. 4.] SLAVERY IN EARLY TEXAS. 653 

offered the colonists by the laws of the Republic. It empha- 
sizes the fact that in all of the colonization laws solemn 
promises of security and protection of property were held out 
to intending immigrants. 

Under these guarantees, so solemn, the foreigners, that now inhabit 
this department, entered it and established themselves; and if security 
for their persons and property \ was so solemnly offered to them by the 
Mexican Nation ; and if, what is still more, with the same formality 
they have been invited and called by the state, it seems very hard that 
they should be deprived, now that they are established, of a part of 
their property, by the supreme government, and perhaps of that part 
which most interests them for the purposes of agriculture, the raising 
of cattle, and other labors, to which they dedicate themselves, and 
which cannot be effectuated without the aid of the robust and almost 
indefatigable arms of that race of human species, that are called 
" negroes" and which by their misfortune, are held in slavery. 

He reminds the governor that these slaves were brought to 
Texas as such and for the purposes of agriculture, that to 
emancipate them would be to destroy so much of the public 
wealth, that sufficient restrictions have already been thrown 
around the institution by state laws and that provision has 
been made for the gradual extinction of the evil. The political 
chief realized the difficulty of applying the abstract theory of 
liberty to conditions then existing in Texas ; for he saw there 
was a conflict between the right of liberty and the right of 
property. 

Philanthropy and the natural sentiments of humanity, cry out 
immediately, in favor of liberty, but the positive laws which regulate 
society array themselves in favor of property and declare it a sacred 
and inviolable right. 

Once he mentioned the possibility of resistance on the part 
of the Texans : 

I believe the fatal consequences which must result to the colonial 
establishments of this department by the publication and circulation 
of the aforementioned decree, will be very apparent to your excel- 
lency, whether they arise from the slaves who claim the benefit of it^ 



654 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [ VOL. XIII. 

or whether from the owners who require the contrary, and without 
the respect of any authority being sufficient to restrain them. 1 

This memorial, according to the Mexican custom, could not 
be sent by the political chief to the president, but had to reach 
the executive through the medium of the governor of the 
state. It was forwarded by the governor, together with a long 
remonstrance of his own. After calling attention to the repre- 
sentation of Musquiz, the governor proceeded to say that he 
should have asked the chief executive especially to exempt 
Texas from the operation of the decree, even if he had not 
been urged to do so by the authorities of that department. 
The decree, if carried into execution in Texas, he continued, 
would at once destroy those pleasing hopes of its future prog- 
ress which had been aroused by the colonies then being planted 
there. Perhaps even the very existence of Coahuila and Texas 
as a separate state would be endangered by such a crushing 
blow to its future prospects. Coahuila, he added, looked hope- 
fully to the rapidly increasing settlements in Texas soon to 
raise the state to a place of consideration and even of great 
promise in the Mexican confederation ; and these settlements, 
owing to peculiarities of soil and climate, were in great measure 
dependent for their prosperity upon slave labor. If the planters 
should lose this labor by the decree of the government, he 
believed it certain that " this state must separate from itself, 
for many years, all ideas of its advancement." 

The object of the decree, 'he went on to say, was for a 
thousand reasons commendable ; but political difficulties fre- 
quently put themselves in the way of carrying into effect the 
mandates of philanthropy. Even the most civilized nations had 
not been able to set aside these political difficulties and still 
tolerated slavery. 

In the United States of the North, in that classic country, cradle 
of liberty, and of practical philanthropy, so favorable to the independ- 
ence and dignity of the rational species, we see that it has not been 
permitted to its wise legislators to gratify the most pleasing wishes 
of their hearts, on the subject of which I am speaking. 

1 The Texas Gazette, January 23, 1830. 



UNIVERSITY 

OF 



No. 4.] SLAVERY IN EARLY TEXAS. 655 

Most of the remonstrance was thus occupied with economic 
and practical objections to the decree. The governor believed, 
too, that an enforcement of the decree might " draw upon the 
state some commotions," which would require violent and costly 
measures to suppress. 

Not by this do I wish inferred, that those settlers are of a turbu- 
lent and insubordinate character, for up to this time I have received 
nothing but proof to the contrary but would refer to the condition 
of man, and the inclinations of which he is capable, when, from one 
day to another, he is about to be ruined, as would result to many of 
them, whose whole fortune consists in their slaves. 

In view of these considerations the governor said that he 
indulged the hope that Texas would be exempted from the 
operation of the decree, " as one of the greatest benefits which 
the state under my charge can receive." l 

These arguments were favorably received by the chief execu- 
tive and the decree of December 2, 1829, was issued, which 
denied to the slaves in Texas the benefits of the general eman- 
cipation. The president was moved to this act, if we can trust 
the sincerity of his declaration in the decree, by a combina- 
tion of the most prominent considerations presented in the re- 
monstrances namely, the practical inconvenience of carrying 
the decree into execution, the serious economic results and the 
possible resistance of the Texans. It would, of course, be 
difficult to say which of these considerations was the most 
weighty in the mind of the president. The economic difficulties 
had been most emphasized in the memorials which reached him, 
and it is not unlikely that these had at least as much weight 
with him as the fear of insurrection, particularly as the governor 
of Coahuila and Texas made such good report of the loyalty 
and orderly conduct of the Texans. Certainly it is going too 
far to ascribe the action of the president to his fear of conspiracy 
between Texas and the slave states of the United States. 2 

1 The Texas Gazette, January 30, 1830. 

2 The decree was transmitted by the secretary of relations to the governor of 
the state, by the governor of the state to the political chief of Bexar and by the 
latter to the alcalde of San Felipe. The letters of transmittal are given in full in 



656 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [VOL. XIII. 

The representations of the chief of the department and of the 
governor of the state, together with the decree of the president 
issued in reply, appeared in the Texas Gazette of January 23 
and January 30, 1830, then edited by R. M. Williamson. An 
editorial commends the action of the political officials, particu- 
larly as they and their Mexican friends were not personally 
interested in the matter. The editor believed that 

nothing but the conviction on their part of the vital importance of 
the colonies to the prosperity of the state, and their determination 
to protect them, could ever have called forth their united exertions 
on the subject. 

It has been denied that a decree was ever regularly issued 
excepting Texas from the provisions of the law in question ; 
indeed, some historians intimate that no such exception was 

the Texas Gazette. I quote in full the Gazette's translation of that of the secre- 
tary to the governor, which contains the decree : 

" Most Excellent Sir, his Excellency the President having been informed of the 
note of your Excellency, No. 126, of the i4th of last month, manifesting, con- 
formably with the exposition of the Chief of Texas, which you forwarded, the 
serious inconveniences apprehended by the execution of the Decree of I5th Sep- 
tember last, on the subject of the abolition of slavery in that Department, and 
the fatal results to be expected, prejudicial to the tranquillity and even to the 
political existence of the State; and having considered how necessary it is to 
protect, in an efficacious manner, the colonization of these immense lands of the 
Republic, has been pleased to accede to the solicitation of your Excellency and 
DECLARE THE DEPARTMENT OF TEXAS EXCEPTED [the capitals 
are probably the Gazette's} from the general disposition, comprehended in said 
Decree. Therefore his Excellency declares that no change must be made as 
respects the Slaves that legally exist in that part of your State governed by your 
Excellency, expecting from your patriotism and philanthropy, that you will cause 
the most vigorous vigilance to be used, in order that the general laws and those of 
the State which prohibits the introduction of new slaves and establishes the liberty 
of the progeny that are born in your territory, be complied with, so that by this 
means the time may not be long before the melancholy and repugnant spectacle, 
may disappear from the Mexican soil, which is presented to the eyes of philosophy, 
in the slavery of part of the human species, born with equal rights of liberty, with 
the rest, and which could only have been so abused and vilified, but by right of 
force, which is without dispute the most barbarous of any known. 

" I have the honor to communicate to your Excellency in reply to your before 
mentioned communication, offering to you my considerations and respect. God 
and Liberty. Mexico, 2 Dec. 1829. To his Excellency the Governor of the State 
of Coahuila and Texas." The Texas Gazette, January 30, 1830. 



No. 4.] SLAVERY IN EARLY TEXAS. 657 

ever made in any manner. 1 Rivera states that the president, 
out of necessity, ordered General Teran, then in command of 
the eastern states, not to interfere with the slaves of the Texans. 
This order, he says, was given in a private letter 2 and not in the 
form of a decree addressed, as was customary, to the political 
authorities of the state. Lucas Alaman, the secretary of rela- 
tions under the government that overthrew Guerrero, also says 
that the exception was made in a private letter to Teran. 3 An 
unfortunate mistranslation of Alaman's statement, together 
with that peculiar spirit which Professor Von Hoist breathes 
into the history of early Texas, has led the latter far astray. 
He says : 

And the government was so powerless against them [the settlers 
of Texas] that an attempt was made to prevent another revolution 
by spreading the rumor that it was intended to except Texas. 4 

It was a matter of small consequence, so far as the valid- 
ity of the decree is concerned, whether it was issued in the 

1 Schouler (History of the United States, IV, 250) says that Texas ignored the 
decree and makes no mention of the decree of exception. As to Von Hoist, see 
below. 

2 " No abstante la ley sobre libertad absoluta de esclavos, dada por la adminis- 
tracion de Guerrero, siguio la esclavitud en Tejas, con escandolo de la moral 
y del buen nombre del gobierno, teniendo necesidad el presidente de ordenar al 
general Teran, por una carta particular, que dejara en aquel territorio lo que en 
los demas se consideraba immoral." Rivera, Historia Antiqua y Moderna de 
Jalapa, III, 28. 

8 Iniciativa de ley proponiendo el gobierno las medidas que se debian tomar 
para la seguridad del Estado de Tejas, etc.: a report laid before Congress by 
Alaman, February 8, 1830, printed in Appendix to Filisola's Guerra de Tejas, II, 
596. 

4 Von Hoist, Constitutional and Political History of the United States, II, 
556 and note. Alaman's language is as follows [all italics in this note are mine] : 
" Esta resistencia ha traido las cosas a tal punto, que se creia esta fuese la occa- 
sion del rompimiento, y para evitarlo se dio por eceptuado aquel Departamento del 
cumplimiento de esta disposicion, derogandola no por una providencia ostensible, 
sino, lo que es muy estrafio, por medio de una carta particular escrita por el 
Sr. Guerrero al general Teran." (Iniciativa de ley propiendo, in Filisola's 
Guerra de Tejas, II, 596, 597.) The portion in italics was translated in Exec. 
Doc., 25th Congress, 2nd Session, Vol. XII, No. 351, p. 315, quoted by Von Hoist, 
as follows : " And in order to avoid this [insurrection], /'/ was given out that this 
department was excepted from the operation of the decree." A more nearly 
literal translation is : " And avoiding it [insurrection] was accomplished [or simply 
it was avoided] by excepting that department from the operation of the decree." 



658 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [VOL. XIII. 

customary manner or as private instructions to Teran ; even 
Alaman admits, in the extract quoted by Professor Von Hoist, 1 
as well as in another portion of the same document, that the 
exception was actually made by the government. No doubt 
the decree was sent to Teran as part of his instructions, and it 
is possible that it was never published in the Mexican capital. 
As Alaman was a bitter enemy of Guerrero's and a supporter 
of the opposition to his government, he was not in a position 
to have personal knowledge of the acts of that administration. 
The decree is not found in the Dublan y Lozano collection of 
laws. Its publication in the Texas Gazette, however, with the 
letters of transmittal from the secretary of relations to the 
governor of the state, from the governor to the chief of depart- 
ment and from the latter to the alcalde of San Felipe, leaves 
no room for doubting that it was received through the usual 
channels by the government of Coahuila and Texas. 

Would Texas have resisted the execution of the decree, if the 
exception had not been made ? The people earnestly believed 
that their rights had been wantonly invaded ; and there is an 
undertone throughout Austin's letter to Durst, quoted above, 
which sounds very determined. Guerrero's administration was 
weak and vacillating, and marked throughout by more or less 
confusion and disorder. The extraordinary powers, in virtue 
of which both the decree of emancipation and the exception to 
it were issued, were regarded with great jealousy by the states, 
and aspiring leaders lost no opportunity to widen the breach 
between the executive and the nation. The government lost 
the confidence and the support of the people ; and, in conse- 
quence, its authority was soon held in contempt by the states. 
It was no uncommon occurrence for the state governments to 
decline to enforce the decrees of the executive : at least one 
law was defied by every state in the Republic. 2 It is not at all 
improbable, then, that the Texans would, on this occasion, have 
taken advantage of the weakness of the central government, 
and would have profited by the example of the other states in 

1 In the Spanish original, not in the translation. 

2 Bancroft, History of Mexico, V, 81. 



No. 4.] SLAVERY IN EARLY TEXAS. 659 

defying objectionable laws ; but such action would have had no 
greater significance in the matter of negro slavery, and would 
have had no more connection with the United States, than could 
be attached to the refusal of the government of Coahuila and 
Texas to enforce Guerrero's decree regarding taxation. In spite 
of this incident, the people of Texas were probably the most 
submissive and orderly body in all Mexico during this adminis- 
tration. 

The emancipation decree of 1829 was not generally obeyed 
elsewhere in Mexico. A new decree freeing the slaves was 
published on April 5, 1837, m which revolutionary Texas was 
by express mention excluded from the benefits of the compen- 
sation that was promised to all other sections. 1 Such a decree 
and such an exception would obviously have been useless, if the 
negroes of all other sections had been living in the enjoyment 
of their liberty since 1829. 

In the meantime hostility to the United States was growing 
apace. The Mexican statesmen were learning to believe that 
their sister Republic was not overscrupulous as to means when 
once it had determined to plant its flag in the territory of 
a neighbor. Not by armies, battles and invasions does the 
United States extend its territory, says Bustamante's news- 
paper, 2 but it begins by advancing absurd claims founded on 
facts which no historian admits ; and then follow constant reiter- 
ation of these claims, the intrusion of the American pioneer, 
negotiation and, finally, occupation. The far-seeing were, in- 
deed, already beginning to fear that the United States was 
nourishing unhallowed schemes for the acquisition of Texas. 
The various offers made by the government for the purchase 
of all or any part of the coveted territory probably served to 
strengthen such fears in some and to arouse them in others. 

With this dread of the power of the United States, there 
were growing up also fears as to the loyalty of Texas. It was 
known to every Mexican that the ties which bound the colo- 
nists to their kinsmen in the neighboring Republic were of the 

1 Dublan y Lozano, Legislation Mexicana, III, 352. 
3 Vox de la Patria, February 8, 1830. 



660 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [VOL. XIII. 

strongest kind ; but Alaman declares that before General Teran 
was sent to Texas in 1828 it was not known at the federal capi- 
tal that the Texans had been persistently evading the laws as 
to religion and slavery. 1 We are not here concerned with the 
history of religion in Texas, and we have already seen how the 
evasion of the slavery law was legalized. Alaman complained 
bitterly that the state government had neglected to report 
these facts. 2 Probably the interested silence of the Coahuila 
officials only added support to the unfavorable attitude which 
the Mexican politicians were beginning to assume towards 
Texas. 

Teran also found that the colonization laws were not being 
strictly enforced in Texas in other respects ; along the border 
whole settlements had been formed without any authorization 
whatever. These "squatters," who had nothing to lose in civil 
dissension, were the class really dangerous to Mexico. It was 
men of this character in the Ayish settlement who made the 
first threats of resistance to Guerrero's emancipation decree. 3 
Henceforward this class, to which the name " agitators " was 
applied by Austin and his party, grew steadily and became 
more and more threatening in its attitude towards Mexico. 
This was the class that constituted the backbone of the 
revolutionary movement. 

No one in all Mexico was more thoroughly alive to the 
dangers ahead than Lucas Alaman, Bustamante's secretary of 
relations. He believed that dismemberment could be averted 
only by closing the gates against Americans ; and on his 
recommendation the celebrated decree of April 6, 1830, was 
issued, which prohibited the further immigration of settlers 
from the United States, except under certain specified condi- 
tions. 4 We are concerned here with that decree only in so far 
as it dealt with the slavery question. Alaman took the view 
that the slaves in the colonies had been legally freed the 

1 Iniciativa de ley proponiendo, in Filisola's Guerra de Tejas, II, 607. 

2 Ibid., II, 597. 

8 Ibid., II, 599, 600. 

* Dublan y Lozano, Legislation Mexicana, II, 238-240. 



No. 4.] SLAVERY IN EARLY TEXAS. 66 1 

moment they entered Mexico, in virtue of the decree of July 13, 
1824; l but as that decree was not enforced in Texas, the slave 
interest had developed freely to an alarming extent. He 
believed that the state of affairs in 1830 was such that an 
attempt to emancipate the negroes would provoke insurrection 
" and the loss of Texas would be infallible." 2 Consequently he 
recommended, and it was decreed, that slaves already in Texas 
should remain slaves, but that in future the laws as to this 
matter should be strictly executed. 3 In the meantime immi- 
grants continued to bring their slaves into the country as 
indented servants, as was allowed and expressly provided for by 
state law ; and a rapid succession of events hurried forward 
the inevitable conflict between Mexican and American^aQCTOft Lib 

No further action in regard to slavery was taken by either 
state or federal government until the Revolution of 1835-36. 
No mention was made of it in the Texas Declaration of In- 
dependence. The constitution of March 17, 1836, took the 
matter under consideration, and by its sweeping provisions 
finally determined the destiny of the negro in Texas. Section 
nine of the " general provisions" of that constitution declared 
that all negroes still in bondage, who had been held in slavery 
prior to the removal of their masters to Texas, should remain in 
that state, provided they were the bona fide property of the 
persons holding them. Congress was prohibited from passing 
laws forbidding immigrants to bring their slaves into the 
Republic; the power to emancipate was withheld from Con- 
gress ; slaveholders were even denied the privilege of freeing 

1 The decree had not been so interpreted by the authorities in Coahuila and 
Texas. See POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, September, 1898, pp. 398-401, 
408, 409. 

2 " En el hecho de pisar el territorio de la Republica debieron ser manumitidos 
en virtud de la ley de 13 de Julio de 1824; pero no habiendose esto verificado, el 
ententar hacerlo ahora seria escitar una sedicion entre los colonos, y la perdida 
de Tejas seria inf alible." Iniciativa de ley proponiendo, etc., printed in Appendix 
to Filisola's Guerra de Tejas, II, 607. 

3 " No se hard variacion respecto de las colonias ya establecidas, ni respecto de 
los esclavos que halla en ellas ; pero el gobierno general, 6 el particular de cada 
Estado, cuidaran bajo su mas estrecha responsibilidad, del cumplimiento de las 
leyes de colonizacion, y de que no se introduzcan de nuevo esclavos." Art. 10 of 
decree of April 6, 1830, Dublan y Lozano, Legislacion Mexicana, II, 239. 



662 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [VOL. XIII. 

their slaves (except with the consent of Congress), unless they 
sent the freemen thus created beyond the boundaries of the 
Republic ; free negroes were not allowed residence in the 
country without the consent of Congress. Finally, the impor- 
tation or admission of negroes into the Republic, except from 
the United States, was declared piracy and forever prohibited. 

So ends the first chapter of the history of this institution in 
Texas. It was settled beyond controversy, by the constitution 
of 1836, that Texas should remain open to slavery. 

There is little evidence of the existence in Texas of any form 
of the slave trade during the period covered by this paper. No 
complaint was made by Almonte of the violation of the law of 
July 13, 1824, and none was mentioned by Alaman as having 
been made by Teran. Austin's private papers, so far as I 
know, reveal but one instance. On the occasion of his settle- 
ment with the heirs of Joseph H. Hawkins, his partner in the 
first colony, Austin presented a statement to their agent, in 
which he expressly disclaimed all responsibility for the loss of 
" a vast sum in the negro speculation of which John Botts had 
the management," and definitely asserted that it "had nothing 
to do with the colony." l It seems that Botts had brought 
thirty or forty slaves to Texas in 1822 or 1823, at least some 
of whom were the property of Hawkins, and after disposing of 
them had declined to render an account to the heirs. 2 These 
are the only references that I have seen to any kind of specula- 
tion or trade in negroes prior to 1830. 

The slaves brought into Texas seem to have been pretty 
evenly distributed among the settlers. There were many colo- 
nists, of course, who had none ; but the majority of them 
possessed at least a few. Some even possessed a large number, 
and came to Texas with the intention of opening large planta- 
tions such as those in the Mississippi bottom. Col. Jared 
E. Groce received one of the largest grants of land made by 

1 Statement presented to ... Martin, relative to the settlement of the business 
between S. F. Austin and the late J. H. Hawkins, September 14, 1832. Austin 
Papers, A 30. 

2 Nathaniel Cox, New Orleans, to Austin, October 20, 1836. Austin Papers, 
A 30. 



No. 4.] SLAVERY IN EARLY TEXAS. 663 

Austin, more than forty thousand acres, because he owned 
" near one hundred slaves and may be useful, ... on account 
of the property he has brought with him." l He seems to have 
lived in true baronial style, and on at least one occasion he 
joined Austin in an Indian campaign at the head of an armed 
and mounted retinue of some thirty of his negroes. 2 This, 
however, was an exceptional case. The number held by most 
of the families was much smaller, varying from two or three 
to perhaps fifteen or twenty. Josiah H. Bell, who managed 
the affairs of the colony during Austin's first trip to Mexico, 
brought only three negroes into the country. 3 John A. 
Williams had " a few," six of whom were fit for field hands. 4 
Henry and Micajah Munson each owned seventeen ; 5 Wyley 
Martin, three ; 6 M. Brenaugh, twelve. 7 

These settlers all came to Texas before 1825. Those who 
came later brought with them about the same number of slaves 
to the family as those who came prior to the agitation of the 
subject. A group of fourteen families who applied for land in 
1832 may be taken as representative. Six owned no slaves at 
all ; four of these, however, were evidently younger branches 
of other families mentioned in the same list. The remaining 
eight brought with them seventy-eight negroes, three being the 
smallest number held by any one family and seventeen the 
largest. 8 

The total number of slaves in Texas in 1829 was stated by 
Governor Viesca, in his remonstrance against Guerrero's eman- 
cipation decree, at something more than a thousand. It is not 
positively known whether this estimate included all the negroes 
in Texas or only those that were brought into the country as 

1 Register of Land Titles, General Land Office, Austin, Texas, Translation, 
I, 264, 265. 

2 Recollections of Gibson Kuykendall, Bryan Collection, Q 2. 

8 Permit to settle in the colony from Austin to Bell, October 6, 1821. Austin 
Papers, A 14. 

* Williams to Austin, September 8, 1824. Ibid., A 32. 
6 Williams to Austin, January 29, 1825. Ibid. 

6 Martin to Austin, July 31, 1824. Ibid. 

7 Brenaugh to Austin, March 19, 1825. Ibid. 

8 Ibid. 



664 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [VOL. XIII. 

slaves prior to September, 1827; since those who came later 
were technically known as indented servants. According to a 
report made in May, 1829, there were ninety-nine slaves in 
Nacogdoches, 1 where the white population was 666 ; 2 there 
were very few in Bexar and Goliad. By far the largest number 
belonged to the planters of Austin's colony, where by 1831 the 
population had grown to 5665. 3 Juan Almonte, who was sent 
to Texas in 1834 as special agent by the Mexican government, 
reported that in a total population of 9000 in Austin's colony 
there were 1000 negroes who had been introduced " under 
certain conditions guaranteed by the state government." 4 In 
the department of Nacogdoches he found 9000 inhabitants, 
including about 1000 negroes brought in under " private con- 
tracts." 5 Francis Moore, nearly ten years later, thus contrasts 
the slave population of Texas with that of the United States : 

If he [a visitor from the United States] were from the non-slave- 
holding states, he would discover a few slaves, and if he were from a 
slaveholding state he would be surprised to find the proportion of 
slaves so small. 6 

Stephen F. Austin, who was the guiding spirit in the plant- 
ing of the colonies in Texas, was not an advocate of slavery. 
He was the largest landholder in Texas and, had he wished, he 
could have opened plantation after plantation in the fertile 
bottoms of the Texas rivers ; but he declined to take advantage 
of the opportunity and never owned more than two slaves at 
any time after entering Texas. 7 From this the conclusion is 

1 Archives, Texas State Library, No. 328. 

2 Ibid., No. 326. 

3 Ibid., No. 335. 

4 Almonte, Noticia estadistica sobre Tejas, printed in part in Appendix to 
Filisola's Guerra de Tejas, II, 553. 

6 Ibid., p. 560. 

6 Moore, Description of Texas, p. 27. 

7 Austin wrote to his sister, December 12, 1825 (Austin Papers, D 86), that he 
and his brother owned no slaves. In the letter to Durst, quoted above, he said 
that he was the owner of one. " Personal Recollections of Stephen F. Austin " 
(the Texas Magazine, September, 1897) state that in 1831 he owned two and 
give their names. 



No. 4.] SLAVERY IN EARLY TEXAS. 665 

not necessarily to be drawn that he refused to purchase negroes, 
on account of moral objections to holding them ; but the fact 
may serve to emphasize, at least in a negative way, the sincerity 
of his expressed ideas on the subject. 

So long as the existence of the colony was problematical, he 
made every effort to have slavery at least temporarily legalized ; 
he fully understood that his colonists must come from the 
slaveholding portion of the United States ; he found that the 
soil, climate and products of the region which he intended 
settling were such that negro labor was almost necessary to 
successful cultivation; and he believed that he could induce a 
better class of immigrants to come to the colony if slavery was 
permitted. He held the success of this enterprise first in mind; 
but he thought that slavery could be so restricted by legisla- 
tion that it would be comparatively harmless and that it could 
ultimately be exterminated. In consequence of these views we 
find him, on all occasions when the federal or national govern- 
ment took the matter under consideration, favoring the admis- 
sion of slaves. After the colony had been established on a 
firm basis, Austin thought that a sufficient number of slaves 
had been brought in ; and so, from 1830, we find him in oppo- 
sition to the further advance of the institution. His opposition, 
however, came too late ; a new and more radical element was 
entering Texas and hurrying it forward to revolution. 

During and after 1830, Austin, on many occasions public 
and private made known his views on this subject ; but for 
the purposes of this paper a few instances will suffice. In a 
long letter, dated June 16, 1830, to Richard Ellis, George 
Sutherland, Anthony Winston, R. R. Royall, and others, intend- 
ing immigrants from Alabama, he stated his views, as they 
have been given in substance above ; and continuing, he said : 

The reasons for a partial toleration of this evil have now ceased ; 
and the true prosperity and happiness of Texas require that an 
everlasting bar should be interposed to the further introduction of 
slaves. 

In another part of the same letter he said : 



666 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. [VOL. XIII. 

I am of the opinion that Texas will never become a slave state or 
country. I will be candid with you on this point, and say I hope it 
never may. 1 

In 1831 he expressed himself as follows : 

After the slaves are dead who were introduced before the consti- 
tution was published, Texas will be entirely clear of that worst of 
reproaches against a free and enlightened people. 2 

There is evidence that many of the citizens of Texas were in 
accord with Austin in these opinions. It was quite possible 
for a planter in Texas to believe that the further introduction 
of slaves should be carefully guarded or wholly forbidden, pro- 
vided his own property was left undisturbed. Almonte reported 
in 1834 that, while it was true that slaves were brought into 
the country in evasion of the law, the practice was condemned 
by the "honorable people." 3 If this statement could be 
accepted unreservedly, it would indicate that there had been 
a change in popular sentiment since Guerrero's emancipation 
decree was issued. The fact probably is that in this instance 
Almonte's report reflected the views of a few conservative 
leaders, like Austin, and not those of the mass of the " honor- 
able people." 

The attitude of S. Rhoads Fisher, who came from Pennsyl- 
vania to Texas, may be accepted as fairly representative of 
those planters who had entered the country prior to 1830 ; 
while those who came later brought with them more radical 
views. In a letter to Austin, under date of August 14, 1830, 
Fisher thus expressed himself : 

Like yourself I detest slavery, but conceive the general views I have 
there [in an article written by Fisher for the Texas Gazette'] taken 
are correct, and am firmly persuaded that the free admission of Slaves 
into the State of Texas, authorized by an act of our legislature, would 

1 Austin to Richard Ellis, George Sutherland, Anthony Winston, R. R. Royall, 
and others, June 16, 1830. Austin Papers, D 94. 

2 Emigration to Texas from Europe (manuscript pamphlet), p. 15. Ibid., 
A n. 

3 Noticia Estadistica sobre Tejas, printed in part in Appendix to Filisola's 
Guerra de Tejas, II, 553. 



No. 4-] SLAVERY IN EARLY TEXAS. 667 

tend more to the rapid introduction of respectable emigrants than 
any other course which could be pursued. Our rice and sugar lands 
require that kind of labour, and let the preamble to the bill set 
forth the advantages which would accrue to the State from a temporary 
introduction of Slaves, and therefore limit the period of admission to 
5 years, or to any other number that you may deem expedient. 1 

In conclusion, the principal facts as to the history of slavery 
in Texas are as follows. Spanish law and the approval by the 
governor of Texas in 1821 of Austin's scheme for the distribu- 
tion of lands opened the way for the introduction of slaves. In 
1823 Austin's efforts in Mexico prevented Itufbide's Junta 
from abolishing slavery and secured from that body permission 
for his colonists to bring in their slaves, though the children born 
of these slaves in Texas were to be free at fourteen. This law 
was abrogated by the succeeding government, but Austin's 
first colony was settled under it. The federal law of July 13, 
1824, prohibited the slave trade, and may possibly be construed 
to forbid the further introduction of slaves into Texas, though 
the authorities in Coahuila and Texas did not so construe it. 
The Acta Constitutive!, and the federal constitution of 1824 
were silent on the subject. The constituent Congress of 
Coahuila and Texas, under the leadership of Carrillo, was 
bitterly hostile to slavery ; but the exertions of Bastrop and 
the Austins modified that hostility, and the state constitution, 
adopted by Congress in 1827, allowed immigrants to bring in 
their slaves for six months after the promulgation of the docu- 
ment. According to this instrument the children of slaves 
were free at birth. In September of the same year, Congress 
enacted a law to carry out the provisions of the constitution, 
and for the first time (if we leave out of consideration the 
ambiguous decree of July 13, 1824) it became illegal for settlers 
removing to Texas to bring their slaves with them. In 1828 
the government of Coahuila and Texas provided means for 
evading the law by legalizing contracts made in a foreign 
country, and the American settlers continued to come with 
their slaves, now called indented servants. Attempts by 

1 Fisher to Austin, August 14, 1830. Austin Papers, E 202. 



668 POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY. 

the United States to purchase Texas, together with Teran's 
disclosures in 1828, then aroused the opposition of a few 
leaders. Tornel, after failing to get an emancipation decree 
through Congress, persuaded Guerrero to promulgate it from 
the executive chair in 1829. Discontent was thus aroused in 
Texas and sedition threatened ; and on the recommendation of 
Governor Viesca, supported by the political chief of Bexar and 
the ayuntamientos of Texas, the president, moved by economic 
considerations as well as by fear of revolt, excepted Texas from 
the operation of the decree. The law of April 6, 1830, made 
no change in the status of slaves then in the country. The 
Texas Declaration of Independence did not mention the 
matter. The constitution of 1836 finally settled the question 
by stringent provisions which put slavery beyond the control 
of Congress. 

LESTER G. BUGBEE. 

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS. 




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